


A Recipe for the Unexpected

by gingerbreadlatte



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bakery, Assistant Stiles Stilinski, Baker Derek, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-26
Updated: 2015-07-26
Packaged: 2018-04-10 19:55:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4405394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gingerbreadlatte/pseuds/gingerbreadlatte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I STARTED WRITING THIS BUT I HAD NO IDEA WHERE I WAS GOING WITH IT. AT THE MINUTE IT LOOKS LIKE I WON'T BE UPDATING IT EITHER FOR A WHILE OR EVER.</p><p>“Bite into it.” Derek commanded, pointing at the plain macaroon.</p><p>Stiles did as instructed. For a moment there was quiet, and then a moan pierced the silence. Derek tried not to let the sound go straight down to his groin. His attempts were in vain.</p><p>“You make these?!” Stiles asked. His eyes were bugging wide and he had a little icing sugar caught on his upper lip. Derek was memorised.</p><p>//</p><p>Another bakery AU but this time there’s a really strong influence on macaroons. No that isn’t a euphemism but as the story continues it may well become one. Oh, Stiles is Derek’s new assistant baker and Derek has to teach him how to bake the macaroons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Recipe for the Unexpected

**Author's Note:**

> Just in case anyone was wondering, I've spelt it 'macaroon' instead of 'macaron' because I'm English, and we write it as 'macaroon'. I've been told that in America a macaroon is a coconut pastry, but here I'm referring to it as the pastry made from ground almonds, icing sugar and a meringue (amongst other things if you like) with a ganache or similar substance in the middle. If you don't know what I mean, google image 'macaron' or 'macaroon' and you'll see what I mean. If you're ever in a proper bakery or patisserie, try one. They're amazing!

Derek loved his job. He loved it for a number of different reasons. For one, he could come up with new ideas every day and had a huge number of test subjects he could try his experiments out on. On top of that, he had to wake up at 5 o’clock every morning, and this meant that he was usually finished by 2pm, leaving the afternoon and the evening for him to do exactly what he wanted. Admittedly, this usually meant spending a couple of hours at the gym before going home and marathoning box sets on his television alone. God bless Netflix. The best thing about his job, though, was that Derek got to work alone. For most people this would be a major drawback but, when Derek was baking, he was in his own little world and had no time to be dealing with other people.

Lydia apparently disagreed with this philosophy. She’d ignored Derek’s objections and hired a new assistant for him without his consent. Derek had never even met the guy before.

To be fair, this wouldn’t change his viewpoint; he’d still prefer to work alone. Other people just got in the way and didn’t understand his baking routines. They didn’t realise that in order to work in a kitchen as efficiently as possible, said kitchen must be tidy at all times. Derek just couldn’t operate smoothly in a messy kitchen.

It was quite a sight during the middle of his shift. Derek’s area of the kitchen was as close to immaculate as it could be while baking, while Erica and Boyd’s parts of the kitchen were covered in icing sugar and flour. Sometimes there were even discarded cracked eggs. One thing that was always consistent, though, was the fact that their sinks were full to the brim, with a backlog just to the side. Derek couldn’t understand it. Sure, he had things on the draining board, but it was a better use of his time for him to allow them to dry naturally, instead of drying them by hand unnecessarily.

Lydia had forced the whole assistant thing on him, claiming that the workload was just too much for one person to be able to complete without compromising on taste, which naturally was something that she could never do. Her bakery had a reputation to uphold and she fully intended for it to continue to be the most popular one in the town.

Derek had to concede that he could understand her reasoning, even if he didn’t agree. His macaroons had become increasingly popular and it was soon clear that his supply wasn’t meeting the demands of the customers. They were often sold out by midday, yet Lydia’s Confections only closed at 5.30pm.

You may be wondering why they were sold out by noon if Derek only finished work at 2. But the macaroons had to be made at least 24 hours in advance of eating, in order for their flavour and texture to be at their best. Therefore, Derek was always baking macaroons in readiness for the next day.

Anyway, back to the problem at hand. Derek didn’t have an issue with taking on more hours. He could easily get up at 4am and continue with his culinary adventures for an extra hour. It wasn’t that he needed the money, but more that his schedule was never particularly busy. He was running out of box sets to watch and would soon resort to going back and watching all the series for a seconds or third time. Plus, getting up an hour earlier would beat having an assistant any day.

Unfortunately for Derek, Lydia had insisted. And when Lydia insists, nothing, I repeat _nothing_ , gets in the way.

Derek sighed wistfully. Today would be the day he finally met and began to train his new assistant baker. This was going to be much more trouble than it was worth. Lydia had told him that the guy had never even _eaten a macaroon_ before! And now he was supposed to master the craft of creating them? Yeah, right. He’d be gone within a week. Two tops. Hopefully.

At that moment, Derek’s thoughts were interrupted by a lithe brunette barging through the door, looking around frantically. His face relaxed on seeing Derek and he bounced towards him.

Derek crossed his arms over his chest and scowled, attempting to look intimidating and unapproachable, “You’re late.” he said. The guy hadn’t looked good on paper, and he certainly didn’t make a good first impression either. Being late on a first day said many things.

Also there was the issue with his hair. It was messy and clearly artistically styled, but, when one was working in a kitchen, hair must be kept short and neat so as not to get in the way of the cooking process. Either that or long enough to be tied back, like Erica’s. Brushing your hair out of your eyes not only meant that you had to wash your hands incredibly regularly for the sake of hygiene, but also meant that much time would be wasted, which was simply not an option when working in the field of French patisserie.

The man brushed his hand through his hair, changing the look from ‘messy but cute bedhead’ to ‘I’ve just been fucked senseless’ in a matter of seconds. The style definitely suited him. His hand moved to the back of his neck as he rubbed it while laughing awkwardly, “Yeah, sorry about that, man. My Jeep broke down on the way here. I was running early and everything and it took forever for the insurance guy to get there. I was gonna call you but I didn’t have your number.” The man smiled apologetically.

Derek wasn’t sure he believed him. Tardiness should not be tolerated, regardless of the excuse. Still, Derek knew that Lydia would be a pain in the ass if he sent the guy packing already so he just sighed and muttered, “Don’t let it happen again.”

For some reason, the guy seemed to take this response positively as his whole face lit up, “Don’t worry, dude. Won’t happen again. Ever. My name’s Stiles. Lydia told me that you’re Derek?” he looked up at him questioningly, clearly awaiting either a confirmation or a denial. Derek nodded curtly.

“Great! It’s nice to meet you. I know I’ve never had a macaroon before but my buddy Scott raves about this place. Seriously, dude! He comes in here like three times a week just to buy a macaroon or two. I’ve never had one because I’m too poor to buy one. Really, that shit is expensive! I mean…er..not ‘shit’ exactly, just uh,” Derek smirked, watching the younger man squirm, “It’s just a saying I use. A lot. Anyway, if they cost that much, they’ve got to be like liquid gold, heh?”

Stiles, as Derek now knew him (although he wasn't quite sure what kind of name that was, exactly) looked down at his shoes as his cheeks flushed a delicate pink. Derek just wanted to see what else he could turn that shade.

He stopped these thoughts before they could begin to escalate and focused on the matter at hand. Stiles had never even tasted a macaroon, and this needed to be rectified immediately.

“In order for you to be able to create macaroons, you need to know what you’re actually aiming to achieve. Sure, you’ve probably seen them in display cabinets before, but you need to get a feel for the texture and the delicacy of the taste.”

Stiles nodded to show that he was following what Derek was saying and Derek turned to walk away, beckoning for him to follow. Stiles almost tripped over in his haste to do as he was told.

Derek led them to the display cabinet he had already set up for the day’s sales. From there he took a plain macaroon, a chocolate one and his personal favourite: a salted caramel one. Derek was a sucker for salted caramel.

Stiles watched him eagerly as Derek placed them on a plate carefully. He grabbed a small knife from the drawer and filled a glass with water. Carrying the items, Derek led Stiles over to one of the bakery’s few tables and took a seat after putting them down on the table gently. Stiles followed his lead.

“Bite into it.” Derek commanded, pointing at the plain macaroon.

Stiles did as instructed. For a moment there was quiet, and then a moan pierced the silence. Derek tried not to let the sound go straight down to his groin. His attempts were in vain.

“You make these?!” Stiles asked. His eyes were bugging wide and he had a little icing sugar caught on his upper lip. Derek was memorised. “I can now see why these cost so much. Oh my gosh, dude! You must be loaded! You can sell these for a fortune. Now I get why you sell them for $2 a pop. Wait, shit! That’s your Camaro outside isn’t it?”

Derek spent a few seconds trying to interpret what exactly had just been spoken to him and finally nodded, albeit in a slightly confused manner.

Stiles shoved the other half of the macaroon into his mouth with a grin. As soon as he had swallowed he carried on with his monologue, “Oh wow, when I eventually learn how to make these I’m gonna get so fat but I won’t even care because I’ll be eating them all day!”

Derek rolled his eyes and nodded his head at the glass of water. Stiles took a sip out of it obediently.

“Which one’s next?” Stiles asked eagerly.

Instead of answering, Derek took the knife and cut the chocolate macaroon in half, causing Stiles to pout.

“We’re not gonna _share_ are we?” at Derek’s raised eyebrows, Stiles continued, “I mean, you already know how it tastes but in order for me to feel the full effect of its beauty, I think I should eat the whole thing. You know, just to be sure.”

Derek rolled his eyes and forced himself not to chuckle, although a smile may have succeeded in creeping onto his face.

“Don’t worry it’s all yours.” Stiles made to grab a half of the sugary goodness but Derek stopped him with a slap to his wrist. Stiles withdrew his hand dolefully and Derek carried on, “But first, you need to observe the appearance of the inside, since you were too preoccupied to do so with the last one.” he said with a pointed look. Stiles managed to look slightly guilty.

Derek picked up a half, ignoring Stiles’s protests and pointed to the centre of one of the biscuit halves, “This bit _must_ be soft yet slightly chewy. It’s a fine balance but it’s incredibly crucial to the overall product.” He moved his hand so that it was now pointing at the soft outer shell, “Notice how there are no cracks. This is mostly due to the precise cooking times and temperatures but also you have to make sure that you leave the macaroons to dry out before putting them in the oven. Otherwise, the texture of the top won’t be smooth and hard. Also, you need to ensure that there are no big air pockets in the main body of the macaroon. I’ll show you how to do that later but it’s basically just tapping the tray against the counter before letting them dry and putting them in the oven.”

Derek paused when he saw that Stiles was gaping at him, “Should I be taking notes?” he asked. Derek smirked in response and replied, “No, I’m only going to show you how to make the basic mixture today and then we’ll slowly progress to piping practice, making each ganache filling and actually baking them in the oven.”

Derek stopped speaking when he saw Stiles staring longingly at the half of the chocolate macaroon that was still on the plate.

“You can eat that now but you still need to listen to what I’m saying. Now, the only other important thing that I want to point out is that the majority of the flavour is actually in the ganache. I suppose you could just make a plain macaroon and then have a strongly flavoured ganache to make up for it, but I prefer to leave a hint of what you want the customer to taste in the actual biscuit part too. Here.”

Derek broke a bit of the biscuit part off the remaining part of the chocolate macaroon and handed it to Stiles, who had already sipped on the water before taking the piece of biscuit from Derek. While eating, his eyes lit up in understanding and once he had swallowed he was nodding in agreement, “Yeah I see what you mean. Can I eat the rest of that now?”

Derek gave him the remains of the macaroon, “You can try the other one after that, too. I only picked it out because it’s my favourite and it’s what you’ll be working towards. We do make novelty macaroons for special occasions and public holidays, such as reindeer ones and little tiered wedding cake ones . The wedding cake macaroons take a _lot_ of work.”

Stiles nodded along as he talked, and licked his fingers clean when some of the salted caramel filling stuck to them.

Derek cleared his throat and looked away, before standing up and picking up the used crockery to take into the kitchen and wash.

“We’d better get started then.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it! I love baking so I thought I'd have a go at a bakery AU. I chose to centre it around macaroons because I'm hoping to master them over the summer and so far it's going quite well!


End file.
